Addendum
by manhattan martini
Summary: In the quiet darkness of his apartment, he wonders if he'll ever accomplish something.
1. Ema Skye

**notes: **Twenty different sets of prompts for twenty different characters.  
**warnings: **Huge spoilers, some pairings.

**ad**·**den**·**dum  
**o1. Ema Skye

_o1, serendipity—_

The very first book her sister buys is about science.

When Ema turns thirteen, Lana gives it to her. The cover is blue, heavy and thick and worn-out from years of using, but the pages are very thin and fragile; Ema is very careful while handling it, so that her finger doesn't slip and rip the paper.

She spends the following weeks reading it, with a flashlight beneath the sheets and a smile on her lips as she strolls between sulfur and mercury, eyes pausing over test tubes and bubbly, colorful concoctions. It makes her imagination stretch, and she starts spending her allowance on fingerprint dust and luminol.

Years later, when she is twenty-five and her dream is nothing but a pile of ash beneath her feet, Ema doesn't know whether to hate or adore the manuscript.

* * *

_o2, romance novels—_

When all the girls from her class are busy shoving their noses into books that make their cheeks as pink as their cover, Ema is being swept off her feet by monthly magazines of law and science. The contrast between torrid passion and space physics is a wide one, and the fact that no one wants to sit beside her in Chemistry only underlines it.

"Ema," one of them asks her, one day after class, "You should read some books, sometimes. I'm not saying those science things are bad—" she giggles and Ema feels suddenly annoyed, "—it's just that, you know."

But Ema doesn't. And that's precisely why, one day, after school's over and she is left alone in the patio, that she heads towards a kiosk and buys herself a copy of the pinkest book among the others. Every time Ema reminds herself of the long, luscious words written against the yellow paper, she feels her cheeks heat—she swears never to buy another one again, but _Sea of_ _Infatuation _is still on her bookshelf, just behind a wide, boring book about cellules.

* * *

_o3, scientific process—_

She almost automatically goes through a scientific process to determine every single unimportant thing.

It's force of habit by now, because even when she's eating her snackoos, feet propped above the table as she waits for the forensics to give her a test she could do with her eyes closed, she's thinking of the way gravity affects Earth. It starts with equations and calculations of radius and diameters, but it suddenly ends with a vivid image of herself, in space, swimming after stars and comets (and snacks).

When Klavier knocks on her door, with his moronic smile on his face, she falls down her chair and the bag lands under her left thigh, with a noisy _crunch _as a sound effect. As she looks up to him, eyes narrowed and teeth grinding against each other, she's already thinking about the best way to hurt him, and the necessary process for her to follow so that she can succeed.

It's very funny and all, but sometimes she witnesses things as if they're a car crash: slowly and deadly and painfully, with cold precision and cruel logic.

* * *

_o4, pacifist—_

She herself assumes that her easy, quirky disposition is a thing of the past, and that the bitterness that she blatantly affixes to her mood is something that most people find natural already. It's because it's easier for her not to be hurt if she's the one doing all the hurting herself—she's learned this from her sister, so when Wright tells Trucy it's a family tradition, and doesn't explain further, Ema quickly (painfully) understands what he's talking about.

Sometimes, she hears the other detectives through the door to the cafeteria; she hears the way they say it's a pedigree thing, or she hears the tone of pity and scorn when they whisper that it's because she wasn't good enough to pass forensics' test. And while Ema doesn't correct them, it isn't because she doesn't want to or because she's afraid of the repercussions.

It's because she can't: they are absolutely, flippantly correct, and she's learned that the truth is the only way for her to thrive. Because Ema is no pacifist.

It's a family thing.

* * *

_o5, hugs and kisses—_

Ema doesn't tell anyone, but when Lana is under Gant's care, she always arrives home exhausted and in no mood for a child's antics.

So Ema is basically forced to eat alone, sleep alone, live alone. She remembers the cold mornings in which she'd go to school by bus because her sister had long gone to work, she remembers birthdays with empty houses and a quickly scribbled-on happy birthday note on the kitchen table.

When she sees Trucy and Apollo, a spark in their glance, her eyes start to sting and her throat weakens, because Ema never had any complicity with her most close – with her _only_ sibling. That's why, when Trucy asks her, with a big, wide smile on her face, if she'd like a hug to cheer up, Ema feels a tear run down her cheek.

Apollo only stares at her when she blames it onto allergies, because he _knows_. But he still takes the child by the hand, until all that's left inside her office is the broken shell of a woman and all the fears she still carries on her heart.


	2. Cammy Meele

**ad·den·dum**  
o2. Cammy Meele

_o1, lost in your eyes—_

People always assume that she is a fool because of the simple shade of her eyes. Naturally, Cammy learns how to take advantage of others' idiocy, because it's easier to destroy someone who does not expect to be destroyed.

It starts when she hits fourteen: most girls think she's nothing but a ditz, and most boys don't tend to look at her _face_ anyway, so her reputation is established immediately. It only helps that her breasts are large and she has no qualms with putting them out in display—it's her older sister that teaches her that, because _if they're looking at your tits they're not looking at your_ _eyes._ So, Cammy takes up on her advice and it proves helpful since everyone dismisses her as a stupid, moronic woman.

She imagines it does _not_ hurt.

When her captain tells her she has beautiful eyes, all she can do is pretend to fall asleep and disguise her sobs as snores.

* * *

_o2, process—_

She likes Rhoda best. Rhoda is almost naïve in the way that she works, so blindly ruled by the law; Cammy doesn't abide by the law – obviously – so it's ridiculously easy, smuggling and cheating her way through boring, long flights. So, she likes Rhoda best because the faith Rhoda places on her is enough for her to have space and make the wrong decisions.

The process is rather simple, actually: it involves cheap kisses with the security guards, flirty smiles and falling asleep when necessary, but in the end everything works out well—so she doesn't know why she desperately wants for someone to catch her in the act.

Perhaps it is because she's tired of it all and she can't leave on her own. Because when the crime becomes her life and not part of it, she's afraid to know what she's supposed to do after she comes clean (an empty job, an empty life, those are not options).

* * *

_o3, eight wonder of the world—_

When she stops by Borginia in a flight, she decides to get herself drunk and enjoy the eight wonder of the world: a hangover. When she's around her eight shot of vodka and rum (_na zdravje!_), the stage in the seedy bar lights up and a woman slinks her way throughout the wood until her hands clasp themselves around the microphone. The loose dress, made of blues and greens and silks, isn't loose enough, and Cammy notices she's pregnant.

As soon as she starts to sing, the piano strolls by, she snaps her fingers to the beat of the song, and Cammy is lost in the music. She distinctly remembers being trapped in the melody, but with the dosage of drink in herself, her tears start to fall—she was never a good drunk, anyway, and that's what she tells herself when she wakes up with her makeup smeared across her eyes.

Cammy returns several times after that, hoping to drown her sorrow in booze and blues, but the singer never shows up again.

She brings the glass to her lips and salutes the empty stage.

* * *

_o4, jump the shark—_

She tries her best to throw Akbey Hicks off his rails—not down the stairs. Before she actually starts to plan framing Rhoda (and she doesn't really feel guilty; not _really_), she's struck with the realization of what she's done. Because this, _this _isn't smuggling, this isn't pretty theft. This is actually the death of someone's boyfriend, someone's son, someone's brother.

The blond man is beautiful even in death, she notices at least that before she slumps towards the wall. Her mouth tastes as if something bitter died in there, and her head feels dizzy. He's still there, so close, so far away, in the floor, gazing at the metal ceiling absently.

"Mr. Hicks?" she tries, shyly, just like as if she was still in sixth grade, "Mr. – Mr. Hicks—" her voice cracks when she notices that he isn't breathing, and that there is no way out of this. It takes her a long time to get up and realize that she's jumped the shark; from now on, it's only going to get ugly.

Her no-crying, three-year record is broken when a tear falls down her cheek (and is then followed by more).

* * *

_o5, bright new day—_

Cammy often dreams of running away and leaving it _all_ behind. Preferably to Hawaii, or even Las Vegas—she's not very picky. As long as there is something fun to do, whether it be gambling or swimming, she'll go anywhere. The sound of waves and bright sunshine in her eyes is obligatory, of course, and hot weather is compulsory as well.

She likes beach, too. She likes the sand in-between her toes, she likes the smell of the sea just as much as she likes her chamomile tea; and collecting shells and other things is something she does ever since she was old enough to walk.

It doesn't smell like sea in prison; it smells like a hospital.

"I confess to killing Akbey Hicks," a tired,_ tired_ Cammy Meele says, and slumps further in the metalized chair.

_Think Hawaii, think Hawaii—_

When the officer moves towards her, when the handcuffs clink against her wrists, she thinks of seashell bracelets instead.


	3. Larry Butz

**ad·den·dum**  
o3. Larry Butz

_o1, a succession of ordinary days—_

School is boring. It isn't his fault that it's that way, and the fact that their teachers don't have the spark in their eyes – which, by the way, they're supposed to – just lets him down even more. In television, the teachers are understanding and kind and funny (and impossibly curvy). In reality, they are cold, calculating and have a soft spot for the elite.

He's hated school ever since the Lunch Money Incident; so instead of going, he simply doesn't. Why should he attend to boring, ridiculous classes about chemicals and French and _math_ when he can lie down on the grass behind the building and stare at the sky?

At least, he muses, he's not hanging out with the wrong crowds. But, honestly, he wants to. He wants to feel needed by someone (_anyone!_), because when he gets home, there's no one to greet him but a mother with cigarette breath and bright red lipstick—and she's always hurriedly leaving, anyway.

* * *

_o2, a lost childhood memory—_

The thing Larry is best at it making paper airplanes, and he is damn proud about it, too (because there is really nothing else he can afford to be proud of). In fourth grade, anyone who manages to make one fly for more than three yards is the understood king of the class. And Larry's paper airplanes are swift, are quick and strong, even in the wind; he works with scissors and rulers as if they're part of his body, and watching him work is a delicacy.

It's really the only thing he's good at, so he needs to make the best of it. He needs to enjoy these rare moments in which school (life) is actually worth suffering through.

He doesn't tell anyone of staying up all night trying to figure out how to cut and bend and throw, of course. If someone asks what the cuts in his hands are from, he makes something up in the spot because he needs to be effortless in his glory.

He remembers this after being hung-over, and traces an old scar in his thumb.

* * *

_o3, faded paper—_

He decides he wants to be a doctor, then an actor, then a doctor again; he usually ends up serving at sleazy cafés or working in the kitchen of some small restaurant. He knows why: it's because he is as simple-minded as he is an idiot, and it almost hurts that he can't do anything about it.

Larry's swam by security rooms, by kitchens, by warehouses, by shops; but he never manages to hold himself in the surface for too long. And then there is Phoenix, and Phoenix is successful in everything he does. And then there is Edgeworth, who is perfection embodied no matter how dark his past is.

Then he tries art, and he's actually good at it—_but_ he doesn't know how to deal with selling scribbles in faded paper for high amounts of cash. He sees them hung in galleries, in luxurious glass frames, and he feels proud but nevertheless apathetic.

It's really very sad, he notices, the fact that he isn't at all used to being successful.

* * *

_o4, the rumble of thunder of an approaching storm—_

When Cindy gets killed, he finds himself not _really_ caring. Not that he is a cold-hearted bastard—it's just that he can't get himself into a lasting relationship, and girls are easy to please for a week or two until they're tired of him. He compares his relationships to a storm: quick, hard and cold.

Sometimes he thinks he prefers it that way, no strings attached, a quick fling here and there, hurried kisses before he leaves to work, an unnamed girl in his bed. It's pretty much the ideal life for a guy his age, but Larry is a romantic. Larry wants love, he wants candlelight dinners, he wants to slowly make love under the stars, he doesn't want to take them out to eat, he doesn't want to rush things into the bedroom. To girls, he is the guy before _the _guy; he is the guy who distracts them, he's the rebound, he's the one they use to make someone else jealous.

Brandi, Gretchen, Lila, they're just names, not loved ones, and when the rumble of thunder approaches his ears, he starts packing up and drives to a hotel—only this time, he does it alone. It should bother him that the clerk already knows him by name, but he's too busy being drunk to notice.

* * *

_o5, the source_

His children's book sells wonderfully, and he buys a house with the money. It isn't anything like Edgeworth's luxury apartment, but it's perfect in its modesty. He decorates it tastefully, and actually thinks about taping posters of naked women before he does so. Because, maybe – just maybe – maybe this is _the_ house. Maybe he can bring a nice girl over and invite her to live with him.

Larry buys pastel colored pillows. Larry actually buys cookware – _cookware_! – and a nice-looking fridge. There are carpets, there are curtains, and there's a glass coffee-table; he even tries his best to maintain it reasonably clean (he is only a man, after all).

But his phone is quiet, and neither Phoenix nor Edgeworth call him anymore—he supposes it's obvious, with Phoenix's disbarment and Edgeworth's disappearance into Germany, but it still sort of stings. Sometimes, he wakes up with a woman's voice only to find out that it's the radio, and when that happens, his heart breaks a little. He doesn't know what the source to his emptiness is, but he doesn't want to stick around and find out.

A month later, he switches jobs.


End file.
